Global warming is well underway

Even as sceptics do way too good a job of befuddling people re global warming, evidence is that

Climate Change is real, it's happening, and it ain't gonna be pretty as the next few decades unfold

Much has been written re impacts on polar regions - where global warming has been more evident than in many places. Now, news of changes in the tropics:

Alarming new satellite evidence of the effects of global warming comes as forecasters predict more severe hurricanes By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor The world's tropical zones are growing, threatening to drive the world's great deserts into southern Europe and other heavily populated areas, alarming new research suggests. The study - based on satellite measurements over the past quarter of a century - shows that the tropics have widened by 140 miles since 1979. Scientists suspect that global warming is to blame. ...

the areas just outside the tropics, at around 30 degrees north and south - running through China, North India, the Middle East, North Africa, Florida and the US Gulf Coast, and through Australia, Southern Africa and Argentina - are warming particularly fast. The zones immediately outside the tropics are often very dry - containing many of the world's great deserts - and these are also expected to move towards the poles as part of the tropical shift. The scientists believe that this may explain the recent droughts in southern Europe and the south-western United States. They say that if the process continues it could move the deserts into heavily populated areas, with devastating results. ...

But the evidence that global warming is causing more severe hurricanes grew stronger last week as the annual season for them opened. ...

Two new studies last week confirmed research which indicated that rising sea temperatures, caused by global warming, are increasing the strength of hurricanes. On Wednesday Jeb Bush - the Governor of Florida and the brother of the President - met some of the scientists who had conducted the research, saying that he found their information "compelling".

GLOBAL warming is already influencing the evolution of some animals, according to research that attributes genetic changes to rising temperatures.
Scientists have identified heritable genetic changes among squirrels, birds and insects that appear to be evolved adaptations to a warmer world.

As average temperatures have increased, the researchers say, so have the lengths of the warmer spring and autumn seasons. This has given a substantial advantage to animals with the genetic ability to vary their behaviour accordingly, influencing the course of evolution.

The evolutionary adaptations observed to date, however, are all related to changing season length, rather than building tolerance to higher temperatures or altered climatic conditions. This means that species are likely to remain vulnerable to extinction as global warming progresses.

In a review published today in the journal Science, William Bradshaw and Christina Holzapfel, of the University of Oregon, highlight several examples of animal species evolving in response to global warming.

[quote]JOHN VON RADOWITZ
GLOBAL warming could be returning the world to the way it was four million years ago when sea levels were 80ft higher than they are today, scientists say.

The forecast suggests that a climatic "switch" may soon be thrown, resulting in a seismic geothermal shift.

If the prediction is correct, later generations could find themselves living in a climate similar to that of the early Pliocene epoch.

Even though at that time the greenhouse effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide was no greater than it is today, average global temperatures were at least 3C warmer.

Sea levels were 25 metres, or 82ft, higher four million years ago during the early Pliocene. Such a rise would have a devastating effect on human populations around the world, submerging whole islands and coastal cities.

The epoch was also marked by droughts and torrential rains.

Human evolution may have depended on the onset of drier conditions about three million years ago, when ice started spreading in the north and the Earth began to cool. Experts writing in the journal Science say human-induced climate change may already be pushing the "switch".[/quote]
[url=http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=849142006]Temperature rise may turn earth's clock back 4m years[/url]

A survey of US anglers and hunters find that - even tho most are rightwingers, majority believe (based on own experiences) that global warming is happening.
Poll: Many hunters, anglers agree global warming happening

Seems global warming issue is receiving more attention in US, depite the attempts of various people - often with "conservative" political agendas - to befuddle people. Also, perhaps some awareness that US is taking v little action, despite some promises; not surprising when there's an oil man from Texas at the helm.

[url=http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_3922947]Time is running out for action on global warming[/url]
includes:
[quote]Essentially, there is no national leadership. With a White House that bases its economic and foreign policies largely on fossil fuel development, much of the world has turned a blind eye to what this administration says about global warming. And with a Congress hamstrung by fossil fuel lobbyists and a leadership who would rather waste time debating gay marriage, don't look for any constructive discussions on real issues.
In response to Washington's perpetual head in the sand, there is a growing movement by state and local leaders to address global warming.[/quote]

A report just out with observations of polar bears killing other polar bears for food - perhaps as it's harder for them to access regular prey, because ice takes longer to form as winter approaches.
Study: Warming turns bears into cannibals

[quote]Permafrost soil blanketing northeastern Siberia contains about 75 times more carbon than is released by burning fossil fuels each year. That means it could become a potent, likely unstoppable contributor to global climate change if it continues to thaw.
...
thawing permafrost could have contributed to changing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations during past warming and cooling events in the earth’s history.[/quote]
[url=http://news.ufl.edu/2006/06/15/perma-frost/]Global warming could accelerate from thawing Siberian permafrost[/url]

Been reading a lot re An Inconvenient Truth, based on Al Gore's presentation on global warming. Now found there's a trailer here, giving some idea of content - and with Hollywood style dramatic music, pacing (yes, pacing, who'd have thought that of Mr G?):
"Watching" debate in N America, especially US, I find it puzzling that whether global warming is a serious problem is seen as political issue. Read an Esquire article, on American Idiots, suggesting this was a bit like saying you did or did not believe in gravity depending on political outlook.

[quote]Australia's migratory birds are arriving earlier and leaving later - most likely due to global warming, a new study has found.

Macquarie University PhD students Linda Beaumont and Ian McAllan, together with associate professor Lesley Hughes, have analysed the movements of migratory birds visiting south-eastern Australia since the 1960s.

Using published literature, bird observer reports, and observations of bird watchers, the team compared the arrival date for 24 species and the departure for 12 species over the past 40 years.

The study is believed to be the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere, and is published in the current edition of the international journal Global Change Biology.

The study found half of the species analysed - which included sandpipers, kingfishers, bee eaters and plovers - showed a significant trend toward earlier arrival since 1960.

It showed they were arriving on average 3.5 days earlier per decade across the whole study group.

For some time, I've believed timings of migrants changing on ne China coast (near Beidaihe) as a result of warming; seems that area is more affected by warming than many regions. Also, increases in some residents such as Vinous-throated Parrotbill perhaps as winters less harsh than had been normal.

The British Trust for Ornithology has prepared a report on apparent impacts of climate change on migratory species. Includes birds that are wintering in Britain, or parts of Britain, in higher numbers - rather than moving south/west to warmer places; also variations in ranges of some marine animals inc cetaceans. Notes that, "Although it is thought that no species has yet become extinct solely because of climate change (Golden Toad is a possible exception), many extinctions (of both migratory and non-migratory species) are predicted in the near future." summary:
CLIMATE CHANGE AND MIGRATORY SPECIES

Even as Disinformation for Idiots brigade (read, right-wingers in US) puts up more smokescreens re warming, main science keeps showing it's real.

This just in:

[quote]WASHINGTON -- There is sufficient evidence from tree rings, boreholes, retreating glaciers, and other "proxies" of past surface temperatures to say with a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years, according to a new report from the National Research Council. Less confidence can be placed in proxy-based reconstructions of surface temperatures for A.D. 900 to 1600, said the committee that wrote the report, although the available proxy evidence does indicate that many locations were warmer during the past 25 years than during any other 25-year period since 900. Very little confidence can be placed in statements about average global surface temperatures prior to A.D. 900 because the proxy data for that time frame are sparse, the committee added.

Scientists rely on proxies to reconstruct paleoclimatic surface temperatures because geographically widespread records of temperatures measured with instruments date back only about 150 years. Other proxies include corals, ocean and lake sediments, ice cores, cave deposits, and documentary sources, such as historic drawings of glaciers. The globally averaged warming of about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) that instruments have recorded during the last century is also reflected in proxy data for that time period, the committee noted.

The report was requested by Congress after a controversy arose last year over surface temperature reconstructions published by climatologist Michael Mann and his colleagues in the late 1990s. The researchers concluded that the warming of the Northern Hemisphere in the last decades of the 20th century was unprecedented in the past thousand years. In particular, they concluded that the 1990s were the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year. Their graph depicting a rise in temperatures at the end of a long era became known as the "hockey stick."

The Research Council committee found the Mann team's conclusion that warming in the last few decades of the 20th century was unprecedented over the last thousand years to be plausible, but it had less confidence that the warming was unprecedented prior to 1600; fewer proxies -- in fewer locations -- provide temperatures for periods before then. Because of larger uncertainties in temperature reconstructions for decades and individual years, and because not all proxies record temperatures for such short timescales, even less confidence can be placed in the Mann team's conclusions about the 1990s, and 1998 in particular.

The committee noted that scientists' reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures for the past thousand years are generally consistent. The reconstructions show relatively warm conditions centered around the year 1000, and a relatively cold period, or "Little Ice Age," from roughly 1500 to 1850. The exact timing of warm episodes in the medieval period may have varied by region, and the magnitude and geographical extent of the warmth is uncertain, the committee said. None of the reconstructions indicates that temperatures were warmer during medieval times than during the past few decades, the committee added.

The scarcity of precisely dated proxy evidence for temperatures before 1600, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, is the main reason there is less confidence in global reconstructions dating back further than that. Other factors that limit confidence include the short length of the instrumental record, which is used to calibrate and validate reconstructions, and the possibility that the relationship between proxy data and local surface temperatures may have varied over time. It also is difficult to estimate a mean global temperature using data from a limited number of sites. On the other hand, confidence in large-scale reconstructions is boosted by the fact that the proxies on which they are based generally exhibit strong correlations with local environmental conditions. Confidence increases further when multiple independent lines of evidence point to the same general phenomenon, such as the Little Ice Age.

Collecting additional proxy data, especially for years before 1600 and for areas where the current data are relatively sparse, would increase our understanding of temperature variations over the last 2,000 years, the report says. In addition, improving access to data on which published temperature reconstructions are based would boost confidence in the results. The report also notes that new analytical methods, or more careful use of existing methods, might help circumvent some of the current limitations associated with large-scale reconstructions.

The committee pointed out that surface temperature reconstructions for periods before the Industrial Revolution -- when levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases were much lower -- are only one of multiple lines of evidence supporting the conclusion that current warming is occurring in response to human activities, and they are not the primary evidence.

The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter. [/quote]
[url=http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11676]'High Confidence' That Planet Is Warmest in 400 Years;
Less Confidence in Temperature Reconstructions Prior to 1600[/url]

Even before last year, I had a look at histogram showing the nos of US hurricanes over time; seemed to me the frequency had become fair bit higher than a cursory look at the cycles would predict.

[quote]Global warming accounted for about half of the extra hurricane-fueling warmth in Atlantic waters off the United States in 2005, while natural cycles were smaller factors, according to a study released Thursday by the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

"The global warming influence provides a new background level that increases the risk of future enhancements in hurricane activity," co-author Kevin Trenberth wrote in the study.

A statement issued by the center said that the study "contradicts recent claims that natural cycles are responsible for the upturn in Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995. It also adds support to the premise that hurricane seasons will become more active as global temperatures rise."[/quote]
[url=http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13477989/]Study finds strong warming tie to hurricanes
Half of Atlantic temperature increase in 2005 linked to global rise[/url]

Australian Academy of Science believes that, with changing rainfall patterns, higher temperatures, global warming is set to impact many Australian species. Especially montane species such as pygmy possum and alpine plants.
[url=http://www.science.org.au/nova/091/091key.htm]Impact of global warming on biodiversity
[/url]

Has seemed many Americans have been happy to drive around in SUVs and so on, and if the US of A weather seemed ok, never mind about the rest of the world, they'd just keep on truckin. Recent hurricanes, now these rainstorms, plus a few other oddities weather-wise, may now give a few more of the gung-ho gas-guzzlers pause for thought. (Not all, of course; saw one article labelling Gore and others who are concerned re warming as "Marxists". Duh, not much thought there, and not for a thoughtful audience either.) [quote]By Jason Szep BOSTON, June 29 (Reuters) - Images of swamped homes in the U.S. Northeast deepened suspicions over global warming, giving ammunition to scientists and others who say greenhouse gas-spewing cars and factories are fueling extreme weather. Meteorologists cautioned that no one should read too much into one storm. But the Atlantic Ocean is unusually warm for this time of year, they said, creating excess moisture in the atmosphere that can swiftly build a powerful rainstorm.
Paul Epstein, associate director of Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, said the Atlantic is warming faster than scientists projected even a decade ago, and he expects such storms as the one seen this week from Virginia to New York to become common.
"Scientists and climatologists are looking at one another and we're just stunned because no one, even in the 1990s, projected the magnitude of the storms and degree of warming in the Arctic that we are seeing," he said. Epstein sees a clear pattern: rain has increased in the United States by 7 percent in three decades; heavy rain events of more than 2 inches (5 cm) a day are up 14 percent and storms dumping more than 4 inches (10 cm) a day rose 20 percent.[/quote] Northeast U.S. floods stir global warming debate

from the Independent - evidence supporting ideas that even as planet warmer overall, Britain [and elsewhere in nw Europe] could experience colder winters than have been the norm of late.

[quote]By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 30 June 2006
Greenland's melting glaciers have the power to change Britain's climate because of the way they can interfere with the Gulf Stream of the North Atlantic, which keeps winters relatively mild.

Scientists have found the first hard evidence to show that this actually happened 8,200 years ago, when the climate in parts of the northern hemisphere cooled dramatically after a period of global warming.

Paradoxically, a warmer world could lead to harsher winters in Britain because of the way that melting freshwater from the Greenland ice cap can interfere with the saltwater engine that drives the Gulf Stream[/quote]
[url=http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1147220.ece]Global warming may lead to colder winters in Britain[/url]

Now comes an article suggesting that marine life such as coral not only threatened by warming, but also by more acidic oceans.
Article including:
[quote]Current carbon dioxide levels are higher than they have been for at least 650,000 years, according to ice core data from the Arctic and Antarctic.

[quote]Scientists worldwide are watching temperatures rise, the land turn dry and vast forests go up in flames.

In the Siberian taiga and Canadian Rockies, in Southern California and Australia, researchers find growing evidence tying an upsurge in wildfires to climate change, an impact long predicted by global-warming forecasters.

A team at California's Scripps Institution, in a headline-making report this month, found that warmer temperatures, causing earlier snow runoff and consequently drier summer conditions, were the key factor in an explosion of big wildfires in the U.S. West over three decades, including fires now rampaging east of Los Angeles.

Researchers previously reached similar conclusions in Canada, where fire is destroying an average of 6.4 million acres a year, compared with 2.5 million in the early 1970s. And an upcoming U.S.-Russian-Canadian scientific paper points to links between warming and wildfires in Siberia, where 2006 already qualifies as an extreme fire season, sixth in the past eight years. Far to the south in drought-stricken Australia, meanwhile, 2005 was the hottest year on record, and the dangerous bush fire season is growing longer.

We're not just seeing heatwaves here and there this summer; instead, seems typical that places are warmer than usual.
Here in Hong Kong, had some even hotter than usual weather lately, with neighbouring Guangdong province warning of heatwave.

from a couple of news items:
[quote]Northern California, withering under last week's punishing heat, wasn't the only hot spot in the world this year -- thermometers have spiked throughout much of the United States, Canada and Europe, and scientists are predicting more intense, longer and more frequent heat waves in the future.

While leading climate scientists have been reluctant to link regional heat waves with rising temperatures in the world's atmosphere and oceans, they say the recent weather patterns are consistent with computer projections for global warming.

In the United States, the first six months of 2006 were the hottest recorded in more than a century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center. Canada reported the hottest winter and spring since it started keeping track about a half-century ago, while England, Germany and France are sweltering, and the Netherlands is recording the hottest month since temperatures were first measured 300 years ago.

"The current heat waves throughout much of North America and Europe are consistent with the predictions of our global climate models," said physicist John Harte, a professor and researcher in UC Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group and the Ecosystem Sciences Division.
...
The warming has been the greatest in the Arctic regions, particularly Alaska, Siberia and Scandinavia, as melting ice and snow reflect less sunlight back into the atmosphere and expose more land to heat and warmth. Antarctica also has warmed. Within the United States, the warming is greater in the West than in the East.

"This is expected," said James Hansen, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The subtropics, which include the American Southwest and the Mediterranean regions, become hotter and drier with increasing greenhouse gases, he said.

"Weather will fluctuate a lot from year to year. But the situation this year is of the nature of the expected trend. So get used to it," Hansen said....[/quote]
[url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/30/WARMING.TMP] Yes, the planet is heating up
Hottest year on record; more to come[/url]
[quote]IT looks like being the hottest July [for UK] on record but Britain is not alone in experiencing extreme conditions, write Jonathan Leake and Alex Delmar- Morgan.
Hot, arid weather is afflicting millions in America and in dozens of countries across Europe and parts of east Asia.

The phenomenon has surprised meteorologists who are used to seeing drought as a regional, not global, problem. This weekend they said early analysis of the hot weather, together with the size of the areas affected, suggested it was linked to global climate change.

“Greenhouse gas emissions raise the likelihood of heatwaves like this one,” said Dave Griggs, a Met Office representative on the Joint Scientific Committee for the World Climate Research Programme. “By 2040 this will be just an average summer and by 2060 it will be a relatively cool one.”[/quote]
[url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2291760,00.html]Heatwave with a global grip[/url]

WASHINGTON - It was one of the greatest calamities of all time: Something turned up the Earth's thermostat, touching off a monstrous heat wave that killed many animals and drove others far from their homes to seek cooler climes.

This catastrophe occurred 55 million years ago, after the age of the dinosaurs and long before humans appeared. But scientists warn that today's global warming means that it could be happening again.

The ancient hot spell, which lasted 50,000 to 100,000 years, goes by the unwieldy name of Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. It was caused by a sudden - in geological terms - doubling or tripling of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Climate scientists say the result was a massive increase of 10 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit - even higher near the poles - above the prevailing temperature.

"In certain regards, the PETM is very similar to what is happening right now," said Gerald Dickens, an earth scientist at Rice University in Houston. "Just like now, a huge amount of carbon rapidly entered the ocean or atmosphere. The most notable difference is the rate. Things are happening much faster now than during the PETM."

Most scientists attribute much of today's global warming to the burning of carbon-rich fossil fuels in factories, cars and trucks. If the present trend continues, Dickens said, the world will add as much carbon to the atmosphere in 500 years - from 1800 to 2300 - as the PETM did over 10,000 years.
...
[/quote][url=http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15362553.htm]Gl... warming may be an accelerated version of ancient heat wave[/url]

Scientists claim to have produced the first conclusive proof that spring is arriving earlier as a result of global warming.

In Britain trees are coming into leaf 10 days earlier than they did 30 years ago while in countries with more pronounced warming, such as Spain, they are doing so by a fortnight. On average spring has advanced by between six and eight days across Europe.

According to the study, the biggest of its kind, the extended growing season has resulted in autumn being delayed by three days.
..
Spain, which is growing hotter more quickly than any other European country, has experienced the most pronounced change, the report found.

Countries to the east and north are warming relatively slowly and had changed the least. In Slovakia, spring was arriving only three days earlier.

Dr Sparks said that the study was particularly effective because it used species that grow across all countries in Europe. Scientists examined the date that beech trees (fagus sylvatica) and wild cherries (prunus avium) came into leaf to measure the changes, giving a consistent picture of the effect of warming, the authors said.

Annette Menzel, of the Technical University Munich, who co-wrote the study, said the findings had profound implications. "Unlike some studies that record individual species, this is the first comprehensive examination of all available data at the continental scale, and the timing of change is clear, very clear," she said....[/quote]
[url=http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1221874.ece]Animals and plants 'prove' that spring arrives earlier every year[/url]

Here in Hong Kong, too, seems to me to be tendency towards earlier springs.
When I arrived in 1980s, was told Asian Koel didn't sing till March, yet I've recently heard as early as the beginning of January. Winters seeming warmer; frost-intolerant plants are now advancing up highest slopes of HK's highest mountain (957-metre Tai Mo Shan): might be reflection of climate change.
In northeast China, changes are more pronounced. Some resident birds that were once rare/scarce on coast at Beidaihe - such as Vinous-throated Parrotbill - have become more common, I think as winters less severe; Chinese Bulbul has spread north, to breed at Beidaihe (becoming fairly common in the area), where the species was unknown before 1986.

Commentary in Washington Times, by MICHAEL PRAVICA, Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas [quote]... Whether it's the fact that 9 out of 10 of the warmest years on record occurred in this past decade or that 2006 (just the first half) was the warmest year for the United States, or that average global temperatures have been rising (by about 1 degree during the last century), evidence abounds of warming. Despite many claims to the contrary, natural and human activity can alter the Earth's atmosphere and modify our environment. All the oxygen we breathe (21 percent of our atmosphere) was produced by life via photosynthesis. Smog is a more direct effect of human/industrially induced atmospheric alteration.
Indeed, many past societal catastrophes such as the Dust Bowl mass migrations of the 1930s were likely caused by over-farming. With our great potential to create and learn, we also have great potential to cause our own self-destruction. Our atmosphere is comparable to a rubber glove stretched over a bowling ball -- it is very thin. Due to our atmosphere, we don't suffer the extremes of temperature of Mercury and our moon. In the opposite extreme, since our atmosphere isn't as thick or dense as Venus, we don't suffer from oppressive heat (850 Kelvin) due to greenhouse warming that prevents water from condensing there. ...
Unfortunately for humans, there is no politics in nature but absolute natural laws. We cannot go on pretending these laws of nature don't exist and can be violated without disastrous consequences. Whether it is warming, pollution, dwindling natural resources, pestilence and disease or overpopulation, the human race is on a collision course with reality and only science can avoid likely catastrophes ahead. In that spirit, I encourage all members of the public and their leaders to first of all learn the science behind the phenomenon of global warming and engage scientists in the debate so we can all decide together on the future course of action to tackle and prepare for global warming for the survival of the human race. [/quote] Forum: Physicist examines global warming

BEIJING (Reuters) - Storms, floods, heat and drought that have killed more than 2,000 people in China this year are a prelude to weather patterns likely to become more extreme due to global warming, the head of the Beijing Climate Center said.

"The precise causes of these phenomena aren't easy to determine on their own," Dong told Reuters of meteorological disasters that have caused 160 billion yuan (10.58 billion pounds) worth of damage this year.

[quote]The world faces a catastrophic rise in global warming in 2050 unless urgent action is taken to cut human-induced carbon emissions, a leading academic warned yesterday.

Professor Peter Cox, of Exeter University, told the Royal Geographical Society annual conference that temperatures could rise 8C by 2100 because of a "compost effect" which could see carbon dioxide levels increase 50 per cent faster than previously estimated.

Currently, around one quarter of carbon emissions are absorbed by the soil and one quarter by the oceans. It had previously been assumed that these proportions would remain the same. But Professor Cox said that global warming is damaging the soil's ability to absorb carbon emissions.[/quote]
[url=http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1223131.ece]Changing climate: 'Compost effect' may cause global warming to reach crisis point in 2050[/url]

Following the "compost effect" notions, news that carbon is being released more quickly from some northern lakes:

[quote]By Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — New research is raising concerns that global warming may be triggering a self-perpetuating climate time bomb trapped in once-frozen permafrost.
As the Earth warms, greenhouse gases once stuck in the long-frozen soil are bubbling into the atmosphere in much larger amounts than previously anticipated, according to a study in Thursday's journal Nature.

Methane trapped in a special type of permafrost is bubbling up at a rate five times faster than originally measured, the journal said.

Scientists are fretting about a global warming vicious cycle that had not been part of their already gloomy climate forecasts: Warming already underway thaws permafrost, soil that had been continuously frozen for thousands of years.
...
The effect reported in Nature is seen mostly in Siberia, but also elsewhere, in a type of carbon-rich permafrost, flash frozen about 40,000 years ago.
...

"It's kind of like a slow-motion time bomb," said Ted Schuur, a professor of ecosystem ecology at the University of Florida and co-author of the Science study. "There's these big surprises out there that we don't even know about."[/quote]
[url=http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2006-09-06-permafrost-w... find new global warming threat from melting permafrost[/url]

[quote]It's hard at first to get your head around the idea, indeed it seems outlandish: that by switching on the light, or stamping on the car accelerator, you're helping to pulverise a great city such as New Orleans.

But that's the inescapable implication of a piece of research published yesterday by a group of the world's most distinguished climate scientists. [b]Freak storms such as Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Big Easy a year ago, are not just freaks, they suggest. They are down to us.[/b]

Warmer seas causing more violent hurricanes and typhoons are almost certainly the result of greenhouse gas emissions, they conclude; they are caused, ultimately, by the carbon dioxide from the power station that provides your electricity, from the exhaust of the car you drove to work this morning.
...
The 19 scientists, from America, Britain and Germany, include James Hansen of Nasa, the doyen of American climate change researchers, and Professor Phil Jones from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia at Norwich.

They said that, in a comprehensive investigation, they had found an 84 per cent probability that human triggers accounted for most of the observed increases in sea surface temperatures (SSTs), during the past century, in the breeding grounds for hurricanes (as they are called in the Atlantic) and cyclones (as they are known in the Pacific).[/quote]
[url=http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1521855.ece]The gathering storms: How man is making the wind blow[/url]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Arctic perennial sea ice -- the kind that stays frozen year-round -- declined by 14 percent between 2004 and 2005, climate scientists said on Wednesday, in what one expert saw as a clear sign of greenhouse warming.

Researchers have been monitoring the shrinking polar ice cap with satellites since the 1970s. What is new, and remarkable to scientists, is that the decline has been observed in winter as well as summer.

The US - home to the loudest global warming sceptics (and a more than fair number of idiots) - is warming, according to new report from PennEnvironment.
[quote]In the summer of 2006, Americans from coast to coast experienced a sweltering heat wave that broke more than 2,300 daily temperature records in July alone. This record warmth, however, was not an anomaly; rather, it is indicative of a broader trend toward increasing temperatures and extreme weather resulting from global warming. To examine recent trends in temperature in cities and towns across the United States, this report analyzes 2000-2006 temperature data from 255 major weather stations and finds that temperatures were above normal almost everywhere during the period.
...
Between 2000 and 2005, the average temperature was above normal at 95% of the locations we studied. Alaska experienced the most warming on average, with Talkeetna reporting average temperatures 4.6° F above normal. Outside of Alaska, weather stations in Colorado, Michigan, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming reported the highest above-normal temperatures for the period.

Britain's most distinguished scientific academy - the Royal Society - has a good section on warming, with plenty of info, inc debunking climate change myths (as propounded by some sectors of energy industry, and cronies).
[url=http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/landing.asp?id=1278]Climate Change[/url]

[quote]earlier this year, officials in the Canadian Inuit territory of Nunavik authorized the installation of air conditioners in official buildings for the first time. ...
experienced Inuit hunters, as comfortable reading ice conditions as professional golfers are reading greens, had seldom fallen through the ice and drowned. But this year in Alaska, more than a dozen vanished into the sea.
... "The ice conditions are just so drastically different from all of their hunting lifetimes."
,,,
The people of this far northern Canadian hamlet of 250 used to hunt eider ducks every summer, using the meat and eggs for food and the soft feathers for clothing. But this past summer was the third in a row that the Inuit couldn't reach the nesting grounds because the ice around them was too thin.

The seals have changed, as well.
...
Wayne Davidson, the resident meteorologist in Resolute Bay for 20 years, says monthly temperatures throughout the year are 5 to 11 degrees higher than recent historical averages. For example, Davidson said, the average daily temperature last March was minus 13.4 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with an average of minus 24.2 degrees from 1947 to 1991.
...
"There's almost nobody left anymore who doesn't accept that global warming is real."

It certainly feels real enough to the people of Resolute Bay. From their perch on the edge of the Barrow Strait, they watched this summer as the waters of their rocky bay melted and filled with drifting icebergs - a view as depressing as it was picturesque, because in years past the water remained frozen solid enough to traverse aboard sleds and snowmobiles to their traditional hunting grounds.

[quote]...
B. N. Goswami of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and his colleagues studied rain gauge data from 1,803 stations scattered throughout central India from 1951 to 2000.
...
"Heavy and very heavy rain events over central India have increased significantly since the 1950s," Goswami notes. "Also, the magnitude of the very heavy events in a given year has shown a clear increasing trend."
...
"As the weak and moderate events decrease, their contribution to the mean decreased while the increasing number of heavy and very heavy events make an increasing contribution to the mean," Goswami explains. "These two opposing contributions roughly balance each other and keep the mean unchanged."
But even though the average has not changed, the potential for extreme downpours--and hence flooding and other ills--has, jumping 10 percent and still rising. This is an important and increasing risk going forward, according to the researchers. The number of strong tropical cyclones continues to increase as well, linked perhaps to the gradual increase in Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures. "The results are consistent with what may be expected under global warming," Goswami adds.
...[/quote]
[url=http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=3AF9F4CB-E7F2-99... It Warms, It Pours: Climate Change Produces Fewer but More Extreme Monsoon Rains
Climate change appears to be increasing the risk of monsoon flooding on the Indian subcontinent[/url]

[quote]Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.[/quote]
[url=http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2099971.ece]Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island
For the first time, an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas. [/url]

[quote]TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic, scientists said. The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada's remote north. Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake. Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and could not believe what he saw. "This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead," Vincent said Thursday. ...
"What surprised us was how quickly it happened," Copland [head of the new global ice lab at the University of Ottawa] said. "It's pretty alarming. "Even 10 years ago scientists assumed that when global warming changes occur that it would happen gradually so that perhaps we expected these ice shelves just to melt away quite slowly, but the big surprise is that for one they are going, but secondly that when they do go, they just go suddenly, it's all at once, in a span of an hour."[/quote] Ancient ice shelf breaks free from Canadian Arctic

As you've likely seen in the news, the IPCC's fourth report is due out soon.
There's a summary available online: [i]Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policymakers [/i]
You can obtain at:http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/

see also the Independent:
[url=http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2211566.ece]Global warming: the final warning
According to yesterday's UN report, the world will be a much hotter place by 2100. This will be the impact ...[/url]
Starts with scenario of 2.4C rise in temp, for which impacts forecast include:
[quote]Coral reefs almost extinct

In North America, a new dust-bowl brings deserts to life in the high plains states, centred on Nebraska, but also wipes out agriculture and

cattle ranching as sand dunes appear across five US states, from Texas in the south to Montana in the north.

Rising sea levels accelerate as the Greenland ice sheet tips into irreversible melt, submerging atoll nations and low-lying deltas.[/quote]
and continues from there; by maximum potential rise of 6.4C:
[quote]Most of life is exterminated[/quote]

[quote]The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the highest for any January on record, according to scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The most unusually warm conditions were in the mid- and high-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere.
...
During the past century, global surface temperatures have increased at a rate near 0.11 degrees F (0.06 degrees C) per decade, but the rate of increase has been three times larger since 1976, or 0.32 degrees F (0.18 degrees C) per decade, with some of the largest temperature increases occurring in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.[/quote]
[url=http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2798.htm]GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR JANUARY HIGHEST ON RECORD, U.S. TEMPERATURE NEAR AVERAGE FOR MONTH[/url]

I'm in shorts and t-shirt as I write this - yet here in Hong Kong, February tends to be cool, even downright chilly. This winter, haven't (so far) even needed heater; barely a need for warm clothes.

[quote]A NEW picture of Mount Everest have revealed what appears to be the devastating effects of climate change on one of the world's most ecologically sensitive and important regions.
The image, taken last month, portrays a dramatically different landscape to shots taken in the 1960s.

In a picture taken in 1968, the Middle Rongbuk glacier skirts through the mountain valley with the peaks above thickly covered with snow.

But almost exactly the same shot taken this year by a Greenpeace team reveals much barer peaks and a scarcely visible glacier.

And the environmental pressure group is in no doubt that the radical changes to the area are due to the effects of climate change.

"The degradation of the Everest environment and glacial retreat is, Greenpeace believes, a direct result of climate change," a spokeswoman said.
...
The Greenpeace team found that the glaciers of the Yellow River source have shrunk by 17 per cent in the past 30 years and warns that this trend could leave the region without glaciers by the end of the century.[/quote]
[url=http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21824602-5001021,00.... Everest climate devastation[/url]

[quote]The rapid shrinking of Himalayan glaciers, accelerating at alarming rates in past decades as a result of global warming, will have catastrophic consequences for communities living downstream and millions who rely on glacial melt water, a new report says. The report, the first comprehensive study on the impact of warming temperatures on glaciers and glacial lakes in the Himalayan region warns of impending glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) – when rising waters from glacial melt breach dams in glacial lakes – and calls for early warning and mitigation measures to avert disaster.

Nearly 15000 glaciers and 9000 glacial lakes are found in the Himalayan mountain chain which stretches 2500 km across five countries – Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, India and China. The mountain range feeds nine perennial river systems in the region and constitutes a lifeline for nearly 1.3 billion people downstream.

Himalayan glaciers are shrinking at an average of 10 to 60 m annually, with some retreating by 74 m a year. In China, glaciers have been retreating at a rate of 5.5 per cent in the last three decades. With current climate change projections two-thirds of China's glaciers are likely to disappear by 2050, and almost all would be gone by 2100.

Significant changes were also seen in the Indian Himalaya, with the highest rate of glacial retreat found in the Bada Shigri Glacier and lowest in the Chhota Shigri Glacier in the Chenab River Basin, where glaciers are retreating by 6.8 to 29.8 m each year.

In Bhutan, the Luggye Glacier retreated by 160 m yearly from 1988 to 1993 resulting in rapid growth of the Luggye Tso Lake. The Raphstreng Glacier retreated 35 m every year on average from 1984 to 1998 but from 1988 to 1993 the retreat rate almost doubled to 60 m per year.

Glacier retreat has been accelerating in Nepal since the 1990s, with dramatic retreats recorded between 1994 and 1998 especially in the Dudh Koshi sub-basin where all of the glaciers studied have retreat by 10 to 59 m yearly. The Dudh Koshi sub-basin is the largest basin and most densely glaciated region in Nepal.

Melting glaciers are also leading to some of the fastest-growing glacial lakes in the region. Some glacial lakes have grown by almost 800 per cent since the 1970s.
[/quote]
[url=http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=512&Ar... Fast Melting Glaciers from Rising Temperatures Expose Millions in Himalaya to Devastating Floods and Water Shortages[/url]

[quote]SWISS CAMP, Greenland Ice Cap, June 6 (Reuters) - Dr. Konrad Steffen is the director of University of Colorado at Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and a veteran researcher of Arctic climate. He discussed the accelerating melting of Greenland's ice cap and its effects on global ocean levels in an interview with Reuters on May 18 at his field research camp.
...
Q: Did the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report underestimate the forecast for the rise in ocean levels?

A: I think it definitely underestimated. We complained heavily before it was released
...
Right now we have warming all the way down to the mid-latitudes.
...
We have never had such a high carbon dioxide level in the past 500,000 years.
...
Q: How do you view the media coverage of climate change?

A: One disappointment I would raise is if you look at the understanding of climate change by scientists -- let's be generous -- 95 percent of scientists say we understand the process and we are convinced there is global warming. The media reports it, like a lot of other stories, as 50-50. ...[/quote]
[url=http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06897244.htm]INTERVIEW-Global warming and the melting of Greenland[/url]

[quote]China blamed global warming on Wednesday for this year's weather extremes, which have led to more than 700 deaths from flooding and left more than seven million with little access to water.

Such extremes are likely to get worse and more common in the future, said Song Lianchun, head of the China Meteorological Administration's Department of Forecasting Services and Disaster Mitigation.

"It should be said that one of the reasons for the weather extremes this year has been unusual atmospheric circulation bought about by global warming," Song told a news conference carried live on the central government Web site (www.gov.cn).

"These kind of extremes will become more frequent, and more obvious. This has already been borne out by the facts," he said. "I think the impact on our country will definitely be very large."

Here in Hong Kong, we're in a heatwave - most sustained hot, sunny summer weather I've known in 20 years here. Seen forecast suggesting this is set to change - maybe next week will see typhoons hit Hainan and Taiwan, shortly after one bashing Japan.

[quote]Greenhouse gas emissions -- not El Nino or other natural phenomena -- pushed U.S. temperatures for 2006 close to a record high, government climate scientists reported on Tuesday.

The annual average U.S. temperature in 2006 was 2.1 degrees F (1.16C) above the 20th century average and the ninth consecutive year of above-normal U.S. temperatures, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote.
...

"What we found was a very strong footprint of the observed warming, consistent with the greenhouse gas effect," [Martin Hoerling of the U.S. climate administration] said in a telephone interview.
...
For most states, 2006 ranked among the 10 hottest years since 1895. Globally, 2005 was the warmest, edging out 1998, with 2006 ranked about sixth for the world, Hoerling said.[/quote]
[url=http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2827509420070828]Greenh... gases fueled 2006 U.S. heat[/url]

[quote]Wildfires are flaring bigger and hotter in Alaska, the northern Rockies and the Sierra Nevada. Bighorn sheep, mountain goats and grizzly bears in Glacier National Park, along with deer and marsh rabbits in the Florida Keys, face a housing crisis.

Glacier's alpine meadows are disappearing, sea levels are rising in the Keys and other federal lands are feeling the heat from global warming — and the government is not doing much about it, congressional investigators said in a report Thursday.

Climate change, however, does have things looking up for heat-loving pests like beetles, grasshoppers and fungi.
...
After more than three years of study, the Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress, harshly faulted the Bush administration for doing little to deal with the far-reaching effects of climate change rapidly taking place in national parks, forests, marine sanctuaries and other federal lands and waters — almost 30 percent of the United States.[/quote]
[url=http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gNYh8OVG2C0SOVMe3Wxge0ZR0nzA] GAO Faults Agencies Over Global Warming[/url]
Summary - and link to download pdf of the report - at:
[url=http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-07-863]Climate Change: Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects on Federal Land and Water Resources[/url]

From CNN: [quote]Ice cover in the Arctic Ocean, long held to be an early warning of a changing climate, has shattered the all-time low record this summer, scientists say. Additionally, the European Space Agency said nearly 200 satellite photos this month taken together showed an ice-free passage along northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland, according to news reports. ... Mark Serreze, senior research scientist at NSIDC, termed the decline "astounding." "It's almost an exclamation point on the pronounced ice loss we've seen in the past 30 years," he said. Most researchers had anticipated the complete disappearance of the Arctic ice pack during summer months would happen after the year 2070, he said, but now, "losing summer sea ice cover by 2030 is not unreasonable."[/quote] Ice loss 'opens Northwest Passage'

[quote]A record number of floods, droughts and storms around the world this year amount to a climate change "mega disaster", the United Nation's emergency relief coordinator, Sir John Holmes, has warned.

Sir John, a British diplomat who is also known as the UN's under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said dire predictions about the impact of global warming on humanity were already coming true.

"We are seeing the effects of climate change. Any year can be a freak but the pattern looks pretty clear to be honest. That's why we're trying ... to say, of course you've got to deal with mitigation of emissions, but this is here and now, this is with us already," he said.

As a measure of the worsening situation, Ocha, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - part of the UN secretariat that employs Sir John - has issued 13 emergency "flash" appeals so far this year. The number is three more than in 2005, which held the previous record.

[quote]Man-made global warming is driving up humidity levels, with the risk that rainfall patterns will shift or strengthen, tropical storms intensify and human health may suffer from heat stress, a study released on Wednesday said.

From 1976 to 2004, when the world's average surface temperature rose 0.49 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit), global levels of atmospheric water vapour rose 2.2 percent, according to the paper by British scientists.
...
Gillett said water vapour was a "positive feedback" -- a vicious circle, in scientific parlance -- in the global warming equation.

Interesting interview transcript on Alternet; includes Bill McKibben of www.stepitup2007.org saying:
[quote][re the wildfires now raging across parts of California:] This is the kind of disaster that we see more and more of as we begin to change the basic physics and chemistry of the planet we live on. One of the people leading the really brave rescue effort out there yesterday said, one of the San Diego authorities said, this is the driest it's been in at least ninety years. It's dry because they've had terrific heat and not much rain. And those are just the conditions for that part of the world that all the modeling suggests come about when you begin to raise the temperature.
...
to call it "global warming" is correct, but almost a misnomer. What we're really doing is adding immense amounts of energy to a system, and that energy is expressing itself in all kinds of ways: more evaporation, more precipitation, higher wind speeds, rapid melt of ice across the Arctic and across every glacial system that we know about, on and on and on.

It is -- you know, we used to think that we were still a decade or two away from the real emergency. That's what we would have said twenty years ago, when I wrote The End of Nature. Now, we understand, the modeling makes clear, that the planet was more finely balanced than we've understood. What we've done so far has been enough to throw every physical system on earth out of kilter.

What we're fighting for now is not to prevent global warming. There is going to be some global warming; there already is. What we're fighting for now is to keep that miserable and difficult century of global warming from turning into an absolute catastrophe that rewrites the geology and biology of this planet for eons to come.[/quote]
[url=http://www.alternet.org/environment/65972/?page=1]Are the Wildfires in So. California Related to Global Warming?[/url]

from AFP report:
[quote]More than four times the number of natural disasters are occurring now than did two decades ago, British charity Oxfam said in a study Sunday that largely blamed global warming.

"Oxfam... says that rising green house gas emissions are the major cause of weather-related disasters and must be tackled," the organisation said, adding that the world's poorest people were being hit the hardest.

The world suffered about 120 natural disasters per year in the early 1980s, which compared with the current figure of about 500 per year, according to the report.

"This year we have seen floods in South Asia, across the breadth of Africa and Mexico that have affected more than 250 million people," noted Oxfam director Barbara Stocking.

"This is no freak year. It follows a pattern of more frequent, more erratic, more unpredictable and more extreme weather events that are affecting more people."
...
Floods and wind-storms have increased from 60 events in 1980 to 240 last year, with flooding itself up six-fold.

Associated Press report, on another change that's evidently underway, and faster than computer models had predicted: [quote]Earth's tropical belt seems to have expanded a couple hundred miles over the past quarter century, which could mean more arid weather for some already dry subtropical regions, new climate research shows. ... The newest study, published Sunday in the new scientific journal Nature Geoscience, shows that by using the weather definition, the tropics are expanding toward Earth's poles more than predicted. And that means more dry weather is moving to the edges of the tropics in places like the U.S. Southwest. ...
Climate scientists have long predicted a growing tropical belt toward the end of the 21st century because of man-made global warming. But what has happened in the past quarter century is larger and more puzzling than initially predicted, said Dian Seidel, a research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lab in Silver Spring, Md. She is the author of the newest study. "They are big changes," she said. "It's a little puzzling." ...
climate scientists Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria and Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Seidel's work makes sense and that computer models have consistently been underestimating the ill effects of global warming. "[b]Every time you look at what the world is doing it's always far more dramatic than what climate models predict[/b]," Weaver said.[/quote] Earth's Tropics Belt Expands

From AFP:
[quote]Global warming has caused some of China's glaciers -- a source for many of Asia's greatest rivers -- to have melted by more than 18 percent over the past five years, state media reported Friday.

From the World Meteorological Organization: [quote]Weather and climate are marked by record extremes in many regions across the world since January 2007. In January and April 2007 it is likely that global land surface temperatures ranked warmest since records began in 1880, 1.89°C warmer than average for January and 1.37°C warmer than average for April. Several regions have experienced extremely heavy precipitation, leading to severe floods. The Fourth Assessment Report of the WMO/UNEP Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes an increasing trend in extreme events observed during the last 50 years. IPCC further projects it to be very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.[/quote] [url=http://www.wmo.ch/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_791_e.html]The World Meteorological Organization reports on extreme weather and climate events[/url] See also an Associated Press item that concludes: [quote]As man-made climate change continues, the world will experience more extreme weather, bursts of heat, torrential rain and prolonged drought, they said. "We're having an increasing trend of odd years," said Michael MacCracken, a former top federal climate scientist, now chief scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington. "Pretty soon odd years are going to become the norm."[/quote] 2007 a Year of Weather Records in U.S.
(also considers extremes around the globe)

I've seen claims re Antarctic ice increasing, supposedly showing global warming isn't really such an issue. Contradicted by this research.
[quote]The western part of Antarctica is shedding ice much faster today than it was just ten years ago, according to new satellite measurements.

The measurements, which surveyed the coasts of nearly the entire continent, suggest that climate models underestimate how quickly Antarctica responds to ongoing global warming, said study co-author Jonathan Bamber of the University of Bristol in England.
...

They found that for Antarctica overall, the ice loss increased about 75 percent over the ten-year period, from 112 gigatons of ice per year in 1996 to 196 gigatons of ice per year in 2006.

As to whether Antarctica will lose or gain ice as global warming proceeds, the measurements disagree with existing climate models that suggest "[the ice sheet] is going to get bigger because of increased snowfall with warming temperatures," Bamber said.

"We don't see that. We see the ice sheet losing mass," he said. "So there's a bit of a paradigm shift in what the ice sheet has done recently and what it could do in the future."

This recalls post above, re Oxfam saying numbers of weather related disasters have increased.
[quote]The international Red Cross said on Monday it will refocus its budget and aid appeals for the coming year to better meet the growing threat of climate change and associated natural disasters.
...
IFRC secretary general Markku Niskala said that the number of weather-related natural disasters, such as droughts and floods, has risen to around 400 each year in the last two years, from an average of 200 per year in the last decade.